Review: Journey to the 7th Planet

Formerly at Epinions.com Written in 2010, at the age of 30. That last part is the truth, I swear.

 

A sci-fi flick charting the first manned trip to Uranus, led by Carl Ottosen. The planet, Uranus, that is. What they find there (aside from a surprising amount of vegetation for such a supposedly gaseous planet) is the stuff of their dreams, nightmares, and Earthly remembrances, as a one-eyed alien brain somehow uses all of this in its plot to destroy them. Oh, and they encounter some hot chicks, who may or may not be illusionary, and may or may not be the ex-girlfriends of the crew members. B-movie stalwart John Agar (whose career used to be somewhat legit before this) plays one of the crew members, presumably for B-grade marquee value (at best).

 

Depending on your sense of humour, this review is either going to be the funniest thing you’ve ever read, or the most juvenile. I’d like to think it’s somewhere in the middle. When I looked at my notes, I realised pretty much all I had was a bunch of methane jokes. Oh yes folks, I am going to go there. This film deserves it. I mean, look at the title and you immediately know why this 1962 Sidney Pink sci-fi cheapie (a clearly inexpensive US-Danish coproduction, AIP being the American distributor) is one of the worst movies ever made. It’s basically “Journey to Uranus”, and no matter how much scientists (and this film’s makers, clearly worried) want us to pronounce it ‘ur-ahn-us’, we all know it’s ‘your anus’, don’t we? That’s right, this is “Journey to Planet Methane”, folks. Someone genuinely thought it would be a great idea to make a movie about a journey to Uranus. Well, it was the 60s, so who knows what kind of substances Mr. Pink and his co-writer Ib Melchior (who made the pretty terrible “Angry Red Planet”) were on at the time. Anyway, apologies in advance to those who cannot tolerate potty humour, but anyone who has seen this film knows it’s impossible not to make these jokes, and I’m going the extra mile by putting them into a semi-coherent (hopefully) review. Actually, by semi-coherent, I mean ‘bunch of anal joke peppered with the occasional film critique interruption’.

 

The one good thing I can say about the film up front, is that although cheap, dull and painfully serious-faced, it’s a pretty colourful film and the plot is just beyond nuts. It sure is one-of-a-kind. But other than that, it’s a stinker. Sorry, but how can you not have these juvenile thoughts in your head when you’ve got a phallic symbol rocket headed for Uranus, and followed by much talk of losing their trajectory? Nope, you sure don’t wanna get lost on your way to Uranus! These guys couldn’t find Uranus with their hands! But believe me, as much fun as I’m making of this film, it is not actually fun to watch, at least not on your own. I’m just purging myself of the poison this film has inflicted me with by lampooning it. Did I mention that our heroes encounter a force-field on Uranus? Yup, and one guy pokes it with a stick, while another guy nearly loses an arm sticking it into Uranus’ force-field. I swear, I am not making any of this up!

 

Seriously, the only real problem with this film, budget aside, is Uranus itself. By choosing this particular planet, the film’s chances of being anything other than the butt (sorry!) of a lot of anal jokes, is ruined. I mean, when our heroes set up a campfire on Uranus, how can I not start thinking about “Blazing Saddles” and baked beans? And that just leads to questions like; Is there a volcano on Uranus? An epicentre? A landing strip? Mine shaft? Do they experience any earth tremors? Any visible surface cracks? Fault lines? And wait, is that the back door they’re going through? Why is there radiation and quicksand on Uranus? And should audiences really be subjected to scenes of interrogation on Uranus? Is that green lava growing on Uranus? Um...you better get to a doctor, quick! Why is there a tarantula on Uranus? This sure ain’t “Fantastic Voyage” (easily the best film of its type), folks. And hey, just when you think the trip to Uranus was a boys only adventure (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), up pop a blonde and brunette chick on Uranus. I’ll let you make the joke about that one.

 

Oh, and asphinctersayswhat? (I really did write that in my notes, I’m not kidding!)

 

The moral of this story appears to be that women are just troublesome, illusionary distractions from Uranus. So when we discover that the planet dishes out man’s deepest darkest fears and greatest desires...I think we all know what that means, right? RIGHT? I’m not remotely homophobic myself, by the way, I’m just thinking about the characters and the era the film was made in, you’d think that kinda thing would indeed be man’s deepest, darkest fears, at least these macho guys, so maybe this was intentional. Sorry, but it’s that kind of film, really, and I gotta say it says a whole lot more about Pink and Melchior than I think any of us wanted to know.

 

Other thoughts during viewing the film: Oh my god, a one-eyed monster on Uranus! Thankfully it’s not a one-eyed trouser snake, though (one for you Python fans out there). It’s a Cyclops “Godzilla”-like creature and absolutely awful, too. Oh hell, what is that baby poo brown ooze? Um, wait...I think I know the answer to that question. The alien brain (a smart-arse? Yeah, I went there!), when we finally get to it, functions and sounds like a laserium, the kind that used to play Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ for LSD-addicted youngsters. Hmmm, ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, nope, no joke there. And it doesn’t help that it looks like a turd with a big eye on it.

 

Look, the colour and trippy (if cheap) FX offer some amusement, but this is just the most conceptually inexplicable film I’ve ever seen, even beating out “Equus”, and that dealt with a young man who loves to ride naked on a horse! Agar’s a dependable character actor, but here he looks totally ashamed, and well he should be. The dialogue he and the other guys have to spout is full of your typical ‘She was some dame, what a doll!’ type dialogue that seems more indicative of the 50s than 60s and gets super-annoying, super-fast. Speaking of super-annoying, the score by Ronald Stein (“Dementia 13” and “Spider Baby”, both for AIP), seems more indicative of the irritating jazzy, horn section-heavy crap AIP usually attach to their films (especially those composed by Les Baxter), which I loathe. I have since learned that it’s an AIP replacement score for the original one by Ib Glindemann, which surely couldn’t have been worse!

The film actually reminds me a little of the “South Park” episode where Mr. Garrison tries to get fired by showing the kids what happens when he shoves a gerbil up Mr. Slave’s behind (probably based on that rumour about Richard Gere years ago) and we get to see things from the gerbil’s point of view. Except that was (shamefully) hilarious, this is just laughable, in between long stretches of tedium. The end credits feature a godawful “Love Boat”-esque theme by Otto Brandenburg, with the lyric ‘Let your dreams become reality, I wait for you’. I’ll let you make up a joke about that one.

 

In the end, I’ve had a hundred times more fun writing this review than I did actually watching this film. You need only read this, and I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry about the smell.

 

Rating: F